That should be step 2. Step 3 should be to ban those who commit domestic violence or are deemed to have potentially violent mental health issues from owning any guns. You can't police someone's intent if they haven't done anything, but if there is a track record they should not own guns. Any of those people can get their rights back by going through the legal system after establishing that they are not a violent threat to anyone. Also, anyone who owns or purchases body armor needs to be heavily scrutinized. Why would a law-abiding citizen ever need to wear body armor?

Step #1 should be to hold those in congress accountable for not passing these laws. If you are not voting per your constituents' wishes then you have no business representing them. Anyone who stonewalls a gun vote because of their ties to the NRA and/or corporate backers is complicit in these murders, IMO. Hiding behind the NRA/gun lovers is a criminal act.

_________________"Tomorrow is not promised to any of us." - Kirby Puckett

There will be 4 million kids turning 18 EVERY YEAR for the next TWO DECADES. That's a voting bloc of 40million 18-35yr olds in 2028. The Boomers will remain a substantial voting bloc forever (the youngest Boomers won't turn 70 until 2035); but it's the GenX'ers/Xennials, who's generation had annual births more in the low 3M range, that will have at least 10M fewer people than the older/younger generations and will really get squeezed.

Yeah, there's not a hard/fast consensus. But generally I go with the Boomers are '45-'64, GenX is about '65-'76, Xennials '77-'81, Millennials '82-'95, GenZ '96-'10.

But there are some nuances. First, I like to split Boomers by "Early Boomers" ('45-'54) and "Late Boomers" ('55-64) - quite frankly, if you didn't see the Beatles on Ed Sullivan, you aren't a Boomer in the same way somebody in high school at that time is. It was more of an explanation of birth rates than cultural similarities. But the label stuck.

Similarly, there's a narrow group between GenX and Millennials called "Xennials" - explained as somebody that generally had an analogue childhood but totally digital adulthood. Like me. I grew up with cassettes and vhs, didn't get cd's until I was in teens, first email address until arriving at college, and first cell phone/facebook/etc until my 20's. This pretty much defines that narrow time-frame. (We're the best. We still remember before cable/internet, but aren't averse to tech either. My wife is GenX, hates texting/facebook. It's a miracle we made it past dating.)

All those groups have annual birth rates of 3.8M+, except GenX/Xennials that were more in the low-to-mid 3M's.

Cool, thanks for the perspective. I know this is your wheelhouse. You didn't disappoint.

I was born 59. I don't remember actually seeing Beatles on Ed Sullivan, but I DO remember my teenage older sisters going absolutely bonkers over the Beatles and pasting Beatles stuff all over their room.

I started to burst out of Childhood when I was 9 in 1968. Before that it was all cartoons and toys and playing with friends.

I started to "wake up" to the world thanks to a combination of things: Watching the news on TV with my dad as he railed against the government for the war in Vietnam, watching Rowan and Martin's laugh in with him (although not getting half the jokes), and getting interested in major league baseball in a big way, (Tigers/Cardinals world series caught my imagination and I fell in love with 69 Mets the next summer).

Got my first pager in 1983.

Didn't get my first computer until 1989 though, and my first company e mail account until 1992. A little late to the party....

Yeah, there's not a hard/fast consensus. But generally I go with the Boomers are '45-'64, GenX is about '65-'76, Xennials '77-'81, Millennials '82-'95, GenZ '96-'10.

My very responsible contributing adult boys, both born in 1984, bristle at the thought of being included with millennials. You're right, it's difficult to put a hard broad label based on birth years. They were raised by late boomer parents that were early technology adopters.

_________________"It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done!"- Rocky Balboa on the 2017 Arizona Diamondbacks, those comeback kids

My folks were born in '51/'52 and went bonkers for the Beatles, also. But that 20-yr gap for Boomers is just too wide to all be lumped together. There were Boomers graduating from high school and dying in Vietnam before other Boomers even reached Kindergarten. Those aren't the same generations with shared cultural experiences.

I was born in '79, right between the GenX'ers and Millennials. A child of the 80's, but only remember the 2nd half of the decade. My dad pushed sports, I do have some recollection of the 1985 World Series and definitely remember the '86 series. Color tv and cassettes/walkmans were the big change from my parents' childhood to mine, but it was still putting baseball cards in bike spokes and not coming home until the street lights were on and only one phone in the house all through grade school. Not so different from my dad. That all changed shortly afterwards, though.

I didn't get my first email til '97 and somehow made it through college with only the tape message machine and no pager/beeper/cell. But cell phones were mandatory by my early-20's.

I don't know of a world without color tv; my nieces/nephew don't know of a world without live video chat on your personal mobile device. Crazy.

_________________Vin Scully.

Last edited by dirtygary on Tue Feb 20, 2018 3:05 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Yeah, there's not a hard/fast consensus. But generally I go with the Boomers are '45-'64, GenX is about '65-'76, Xennials '77-'81, Millennials '82-'95, GenZ '96-'10.

My very responsible contributing adult boys, both born in 1984, bristle at the thought of being included with millennials. You're right, it's difficult to put a hard broad label based on birth years. They were raised by late boomer parents that were early technology adopters.

They may resent the association, but they are prime Millennials. It was really all about that high school graduating class of 2000. Schools made a push for technological advancements to prepare those students born in 1982 and afterwards to be familiar/comfortable with the oncoming digital/internet world. But a lot also depends on region. 1985 in Tucson, AZ might as well have been 1975 in Cali/Northeast.

Speaking of the generations, you Boomers remember the nuclear bomb drills in schools? My dad has told me all about that, and the fear that came with it. But there was never a bombing. Now imagine how afraid you would have been if there was a bombing at a school every couple weeks and you grew up with the daily fear that your school may be bombed next. That's the fear the adults have forced today's kids to live with all the time with the shooter drills. There are 80 million kids born AFTER Columbine, that don't even know of a world where a school isn't getting shot up every couple of weeks. If you don't think that childhood fear has influenced their position on gun control... From their perspective, the adults failed to keep them safe. And the fear is becoming anger/resentment. They simply don't care what arguments to the contrary are made by the "grown-ups" anymore, they have zero credibility on the topic with the kids now, and the statements/arguments will be immediately disregarded. Changes are coming.

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